Memento Mori, a Latin phrase which means “Remember You Must Die”, is a popular practice among ancient stoics to remind themselves of their mortality. This might sound unusual after hearing it for the first time and for some sounds scary but actually it can make one be more appreciative of the present. Seneca, a popular stoic philosopher, said that one of his friends has a daily ritual by sitting aside a coffin with some wine…
[View Handbook] A lot of people compare Stoicism to Buddhism as ancient stoics puts a huge emphasis on living in the present moment. Whether it be the works of Seneca, Epictetus or Marcus Aurelius, time is viewed as probably the most important commodity given to man. As Marcus Aurelius put it, “That the longest-lived and those who will die soonest lose the same thing. The present is all that they can give up, since that is…
[View Handbook]Amor Fati is a Latin phrase that means “love of one’s fate”. The Stoics believe that the world behaves in a rational and coherent way in a series of cause and effect events. The cause can be anything but the effect is to preserve the entirety of the universe. The fact that the world has existed for billions of years is a manifestation of how Nature behaves in such a way to preserve itself.…
[View Handbook]Rationality simply means to base everything – judgment, perception, action, etc. – on reason. The Stoics believe that the “logos” exist in our reason and therefore regard it as some divine power. It’s the only thing we can control and if we put our energy into it rather than things that outside ourselves, we will live a much better life. They constantly remind us to see things and events for what they truly are…
[View Handbook] The dichotomy of control which is probably the most popular practice among the stoics stems from a deep belief that “logos” operates in sort of two categories: individuals and cosmos (universe).In individuals, it exists in our faculty of reason. “Logos” is responsible for the order and coherence with which it operates and stoics teachings said that if we use reason, our rationality, we will conduct ourselves in harmony in such that in a way…
